The East Meadow Softball team was defeated by MacArthur at home on Monday afternoon, 5-3.
On April 7, the Generals (15-2 overall, 12-2) were edged out, 10-9, by the Jets (8-6 overall, 8-6), but have since won their last 11 games, including this most recent win, to remain atop Conference AA-I by a comfortable margin.
Kristen Brown, who pitched a complete game, giving up six hits and striking out five batters, led MacArthur in the win. Kerri Shapiro pitched four innings of relief for Amanda Carlin, giving up five hits and striking out five batters for East Meadow.
In the top of the first inning, Brown got MacArthur started on the offensive end with a solo home run to give her team the early lead. In the bottom half of the inning, Danielle Cutuli hit a triple and later scored for East Meadow on a single by Jamie Laird. Laird then scored on a single by Taylor Conti to give the Jets a 2-1 lead.
MacArthur regained the lead in the third inning following a two-run single by Hayley Myles. East Meadow’s Conti picked up another RBI in the bottom half of the inning on a groundout to tie the score at 3-3. The even score would only last so long as Kaitlyn Fitzsimmons hit an RBI single to give the Generals a 4-3 lead.
In the next two innings, Brown got some much needed help from the defense behind her to preserve the slim lead. In the fifth, she forced Laird to ground into an inning-ending double play and in the sixth, forced Emma McKillop to pop out for the third out with two runners left on base.
Kate McNamara hit an RBI double for MacArthur on a long fly ball hit past East Meadow right fielder Marissa San Antonio to lead 5-3 in the seventh inning. Brown completed her strong outing after forcing Cutuli to fly out for the final out of the game.
Heroes: Kristen Brown got the job done on both the offensive and defensive end against East Meadow with her five strikeouts in seven innings and the solo home run in the first inning. She now has nine wins on the season for MacArthur.
Turning Point: When East Meadow tied the score after Conti’s RBI groundout in the third, they seemed primed for another upset as they did a month prior. However, the clutch hit by Fitzsimmons in the fourth gave MacArthur the lead for good as East Meadow did not post a run for the final four innings.
Quotable: “We had to be on top of our game defensively and on the offensive end, we put enough balls into play and made things happen,” MacArthur head coach Bob Fehrenbach said. “We got the playoffs coming up, so hopefully we could ride this all the way through and get to be County champions.”
“We started off with some strong momentum, but their defense made some good plays and that was the difference,” East Meadow head coach Cindy McCarthy said. “Although we lost today, we feel good going into the playoffs and we can focus in on that.”
Bottom Line: MacArthur is considered one of the favorites in the playoffs coming out of Conference AA-I this year. East Meadow has proven to be a talented team, but has had their struggles with the highly talented conference including this MacArthur team, Massapequa, Farmingdale and Mepham.
Key Stat: East Meadow was only able to get three runs across against MacArthur, compared to 10 in their first meeting of the season (East Meadow won 10-9).
Box Score:
Team Record 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E MacArthur (14-2) 1 0 2 1 0 0 1 5 11 0 East Meadow (8-6) 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 6 2WP: K.Brown
LP: A.Carlin
